Traffic court lawyer was a fake, cops say

January 07, 2011

A Skokie man was charged with posing as a lawyer in two traffic court cases but is believed to have represented dozens of other clients over the past several years, the Cook County sheriff's department said today.

The investigation of Tahir Malik, 47, began last month after a clerk and a courtroom deputy at the Skokie courthouse grew suspicious about his credentials, according to Steve Patterson, a sheriff's spokesman.

Patterson said Malik also passed himself off as an attorney to defendants at the Daley Center as well as suburban courthouses in Bridgeview and Skokie and represented them in misdemeanor cases and traffic offenses. A number of his clients later pleaded guilty and were sentenced, he said.

Malik, of the 7800 block of North Niles Center Road in Skokie appeared in bond court today on two felony counts of falsely impersonating an attorney. Judge Laura Sullivan ordered him held on $250,000 bail.

After filing an appearance in court on Dec. 17, Malik was asked to show proof that he was a licensed attorney and initially told officials he was a member of a law firm, Patterson said. After the law firm denied any knowledge of him, Malik admitted he was not an attorney and was taken into custody for contempt of court, he said.

"After he was in custody, in his briefcase were documents that connected him to more than 60 cases," Patterson said. "He is charged with representing himself as an attorney in a pair of 2010 traffic cases, but the investigation has revealed that this had gone on for years. We have no doubt that there are more."